


Vienen

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [185]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Dana Scully's year-long Pregnancy, F/M, Introspection, MSR, Missing Scene, Pre-Episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 01:10:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14739257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf
Summary: Part 1: A brief, domestic respite for our heroes. (Also my best attempt at an explanation for why Mulder still doesn't know, in the episode after this one, that Scully is having a boy.)Part 2: That supposed open water rescue with a charter helicopter always bothered me. So I tried to find a scenario that could make sense. ;)





	1. Chapter 1

(pre-episode)

After the abruption, Dr. Speake insists that Scully take it easy for the next week and a half. No work, minimal exertion.

So Mulder takes it upon himself to essentially move in.

He's still over at his apartment for at least a few hours every day; he told her that his “death” has inspired him to finally get things in order, so she’s not left dealing with all of his stuff on her own if he dies again for real. And even though he’s not back to work full time yet, he makes a point of getting over to the FBI every few days, just to stay in the loop. Scully’s not entirely sure what he does there, since he’s officially out of the X-Files unit, but he doesn’t offer, and she doesn’t press. The rest of the time, when he’s not at his own place or at work, he’s there with her.

And it’s nice. It’s really, really nice.

It feels like a dream sometimes, waking up beside him, eating breakfast together, the soft kiss he gives her before heading out the door, the way he knocks every time he comes back, even though she gave him a key. If she didn’t have other people in her life who could confirm that he is in fact there and alive, she might have thought she’d had a complete break with reality, that the stress and trauma had finally done her in. But she’s not crazy. He’s really there, and she thanks God for every moment of it.

Which makes it hard to complain about the fact that he still doesn’t want to know the gender of the baby.

“I’ve had an anatomy scan,” she told him that first night after he came home from the hospital, when everything was still new and raw. “If you want to know…”

“Is it okay if I don’t?” 

It was more than a little surprising, this coming from a man so dedicated to uncovering the truth about everything else in his life, but she figured he was still overwhelmed. She couldn’t possibly hold that against him, could she?

Even so, some part of her sort of expected that he would want to know eventually, but he hasn’t asked. What he has done, which is equal parts frustrating and endearing and yet somehow also so characteristically _Mulder_ , is use pronouns seemingly at random when referring to the baby.

“Whew, she’s really kicking up a storm in there, isn’t she?” when they’re sitting together on the couch and Scully puts his hand on her belly.

“Good morning, little man,” whispered from beside her in the bed, when Mulder thinks she’s still asleep.

“What do you think she wants, pizza again?” when they’re trying to figure out dinner.

“Kid’s going to have a lot to answer for, once he’s born,” after heartburn keeps her up half the night.

Scully can’t help thinking of all the time she spent putting off that anatomy scan, hoping Mulder would be returned and they could find out together. And now he’s back, but the knowledge is still hers to bear alone, anyway. It’s okay, though. She has done her best to respect his wishes, has stopped herself from referring to the baby as “your son” more times than she can count. She hasn’t told anyone else, either, no matter how many times her mother has promised she won’t spill the beans. She _did_ slip up, once, with a sleepy, “I think he’s got the hiccups,” first thing in the morning, but Mulder either didn’t hear her or chose to ignore it. 

Their domestic little routine wavers a little once she’s cleared to go back to work. Mulder starts getting up before dawn, going running or hitting the gym before heading to work, himself. She thinks he might be trying to do her a favor, knowing as well as she does that if he were to keep sticking around for what have become their customary lazy breakfasts, they would both be late every single day. 

It’s hard not to feel guilty as she heads to the basement to work with Agent Doggett while Mulder’s somewhere else in the building, doing who knows what. He still doesn’t seem to want to talk about it when they get back to her apartment in the evenings. But he _does_ still come back to her apartment in the evenings, and ultimately, that alone makes everything else worthwhile.


	2. Chapter 2

_Could be worse_ , Doggett thinks as he kicks hard to stay afloat. _Could be wearing full combat gear._

Of course, he was also a good 20 years younger the last time he had to do that.

The chopper circles back around after skirting away to avoid the blast from the rig. Between the spray and the spotlight, Doggett can barely see anything, but he's pretty sure Mulder's still keeping his head above water. He hopes so, anyway. The _last_ thing he wants is to have to tell Agent Scully that he lost Mulder in the damned Gulf of Mexico.

He wonders how exactly they’re planning on trying to do this. That’s a charter helicopter up there, same one that brought him out here this morning. Evacuating from the rig itself would have been one thing, but there’s no way it’s equipped for an open water rescue.

The pilot’s saying something over the loudspeaker again, but hell if he can make out what it is. A shadow cuts through the spotlight, and then he feels more than hears the _whump_ of something landing in the water nearby. Looks like a duffel bag, but it’s actually a raft, he realizes. _Well, that’ll work._ He kicks his way over to it, adrenaline and fatigue and cold making him unsteady as he fumbles for the pull rope to inflate the damned thing. Mulder gets to his side just as he finds it.

“Heads up!” he yells, though his words are swallowed by the noise from the rotors.

In seconds, the raft inflates, and he and Mulder haul themselves aboard. There’s some relief as the chopper pilot ascends a fair bit, keeping his spotlight on them as he circles but not flying so low as to keep buffeting them constantly with wind and spray. For a while, Doggett and Mulder just lie there, catching their breath.

_Hell of a day at the office._

It doesn’t take too long for the Coast Guard to arrive. Long enough for Mulder to lose his lunch a couple of times over the side of the raft though, the poor bastard. Not that he can blame the guy; the water’s more than a little choppy. When the rescue basket drops, Mulder tries to tell him to go first, but he shakes his head. No way. Mulder may have been the one to get them both into this mess, but _Doggett_ is the one getting them out, and that means making damn sure there is absolutely zero chance of Mulder getting left behind. 

Only once they’re both aboard the chopper, blankets wrapped around them like, he supposes, the trauma survivors they are, does he finally let himself comprehend the full scope of what just happened. He won’t go so far as to say Mulder was right about all of it, but he also can’t deny what he saw. Oil coming out of the foreman’s eyes. What happened to Diego Garza. The way the workers conspired to trap them and destroy the rig.

And oh, Kersh is absolutely going to blow his stack when he finds out about that last part.

If Mulder was right about one thing, it’s that Kersh sent him out here with an agenda. And that agenda was _not_ to simply uncover the truth about what happened to Simon de la Cruz. There’s something decidedly unsavory about the political nature of Kersh’s priorities in this case; not that Doggett doesn’t understand and appreciate the stakes involved here, but his job is to find answers, not protect some oil company’s bottom line. Being given orders, implicitly or not, that run counter to that job is never going to sit right with him.

Of course, that is far from the only thing that’s not sitting right with him about this case. 

He saw the black oil. Doesn’t mean he thinks it’s alien, but it sure as hell wasn’t standard crude, either. What happened to the workers was… well, “unnerving” doesn’t even begin to cover it. He honestly has no idea what the implications might be if the stuff ever gets back to shore, if Galpex doesn’t give up on trying to drill that area. Or what might have happened if he’d skipped on this case like he wanted to, if Mulder hadn’t pushed and gone behind his back to get the Bureau involved.

Mulder. Doggett shakes his head. He probably owes the guy an apology for the crack he made about being able to find a conspiracy at a church picnic. Turns out Mulder’s paranoia wasn’t so completely baseless after all. Doesn’t make his behavior any less obnoxious, of course, nor does it mean every claim he made about aliens was the gospel truth, but his instincts were still good. Doggett doesn’t have to agree with all his wild theories to recognize that much.

Then again, Mulder definitely still owes _him_ an apology for going behind his back repeatedly in this investigation, but he’s not going to hold his breath waiting for one. Nah, he can keep his own mouth shut and just call it even. If it weren’t for Scully, he wouldn’t bother trying to get along with Mulder at all. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like that’s an option. Be nice if Mulder could at least try to meet him halfway, though.

It’s a little less than an hour back to the Texas shore, and A.D. Skinner’s there waiting when they land. Better him than Kersh, Doggett supposes. Skinner looks like he can’t decide whether to be pissed or relieved, as they climb down out of the helicopter. (“Damn it, kids, you crashed the family car, but at least you made it home alive.”) Mulder seems all too comfortable in the role of petulant teenager; after they’ve thanked the Coasties for saving their asses, he stalks over to where their boss is waiting.

“I’m betting Kersh didn’t send you down here to throw us a ticker tape parade for saving the day.”

“Actually, I’m here at Agent Scully’s insistence. You don’t need me to tell you, you’ve got almost as much to answer for to _her_ as you do to the Deputy Director.”

“Yeah, well at least she appreciates what was at stake. What’s _still_ at stake if Galpex Petroleum keeps trying to drill that site.”

Skinner’s frown deepens. “All the men on board were infected?”

“All but one,” Doggett answers before Mulder can. He’s not interested in being shouldered out of this conversation altogether. “I promised I’d help him get home, but…” He shakes his head, remembering the sight of Diego Garza’s burns. “I can’t even begin to explain the condition of his body, same as what happened to Simon de la Cruz.”

“I can.”

He just manages to keep from scoffing. _Yeah, I’m sure you can, Agent Mulder._

“In any event,” Skinner says pointedly, “I assume based on what I heard over the radio that we're no longer dealing with a quarantine situation.”

“That's correct, sir,” Doggett tells him, while Mulder says, “We'll need to confirm that,” at the same time.

This time he does scoff. “No way did anyone survive that explosion. We only barely made it out alive, ourselves.”

“I'll agree with you that it's unlikely any _human_ could have survived.”

“Oh, come on, you've got to be kid--”

“All right, that's enough,” Skinner cuts him off. “Fire containment efforts will include a search for survivors, as part of routine procedure. I'll make sure the FBI stays in the loop if they find anyone.”

His phone rings, then, and he turns away to answer it.

“They find anyone alive out there, it’s gonna be a miracle,” Doggett mutters.

Mulder glares at him. _Really leaning into the petulant teenager thing full-bore, isn’t he?_ “After everything you saw out there, how can you possibly still be this dismissive?”

“What I _saw_ , Agent Mulder, was men behaving strangely. I saw oil do stuff I’ve never seen it do before. I saw no proof _whatsoever_ of aliens. And even if I had, why would I assume an alien could survive an explosion any better than you or I could?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you could trust that if I was right about the oil, then I’m right about this, too. Maybe you could trust that _I’ve_ seen these things. But I guess you’d also have to believe that I’m not crazy, and I suppose that’s just a bridge too far for you.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” Doggett says, and he means it. “But you told me yourself that you’ll believe just about anything. That you _want_ to believe. Whether that’s in aliens or ghosts or monsters or what-have-you. And in my experience, if someone wants to believe in something bad enough, they tend to ignore all the evidence that might refute that belief.”

“Yeah, well the same can be said of someone who _doesn’t_ want to believe. Only they’ll ignore all of the supporting evidence, denying even undeniable proof out of sheer bullheadedness.”

Skinner comes back before Doggett can respond, holding his phone out toward Mulder. “Agent Scully wants to talk to you. Make it quick, we’ve got a debrief with the Coast Guard in twenty minutes.”

Mulder takes the phone and walks away, and Skinner watches him go, shaking his head. “I know he sounds nuts, but there’s truth to what he says. I’ve seen enough to take his word on a lot of the things I _haven’t_ seen first-hand.”

“All due respect, sir, I’ve seen some things in this job that I never would’ve believed a year ago. But I’m still not gonna compromise my integrity and objectivity by jumping on the alien bandwagon when there might be some other explanation we’re missing.”

“And that’s fine, just… just be careful not to spend so much time looking for another explanation that you miss the one right in front of you until it’s too late.”

Doggett nods. “I’ll do my best not to, sir.”

Mulder walks back over and hands Skinner back his phone. Skinner takes it with a curt nod. “Right. Let’s get this debrief over with so we can go grab a few hours’ sleep. We’re on the first flight back to Washington in the morning.”

“I might go stand in the shower for a few hours instead, if it’s all the same to you,” Mulder says wryly.

Despite himself, Doggett laughs. “You and I might not agree on much, Agent Mulder, but I think that sounds like a great idea.”


End file.
